Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl (2 October 1902-9 May 1965) was Chancellor of Austria from 20 December 1945 to 2 April 1953, succeeding Karl Renner and preceding Julius Raab. Figl was elected in the first free elections in Austria since 1934, and he was a member of the conservative Austrian People's Party.

Biography
Leopold Figl was born in Rust im Tullnerfeld, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary on 2 October 1902, and he became the leader of the Farmers' League in 1933. Figl was appointed to the federal council of economic policy under Engelbert Dollfuss and became a right-wing paramilitary leader in Lower Austria. After the Anschluss, he was deported to the Dachau concentration camp in 1938, and he was released in May 1943. He worked as an oil engineer before being rearrested in October 1944 and being brought to the Mauthausen concentration camp, and he was brought to Vienna in January 1945, awaiting trial by the People's Court. However, he escaped on 6 April 1945 during the Soviet Vienna Offensive, and Soviet general Fyodor Tolbukhin asked Figl to manage the food supply of Vienna. Figl merged his Farmers' League into the Austrian People's Party (OVP), and he became vice-chair of the party, also becoming Governor of Lower Austria on 27 April 1945. In December 1945, the OVP won 49.8% of the vote in the first free elections since 1934, winning a majority in the legislature. Figl was elected Chancellor, and he formed a grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Austria and the Communist Party of Austria to avoid a return to the factionalism of the 1930s. In 1947, the communists were pushed out of the coalition, and his coalition lasted until 1966. He resigned as chancellor in 1953 due to internal criticism, but he remained in the government as Foreign Minister from 1953 to 1959, succeeding Karl Gruber and preceding future chancellor Bruno Kreisky. From 1959 to 1962, he served as President of the National Council, and he later returned to governing Lower Austria. He died of kidney cancer in Vienna on 9 May 1965 at the age of 62.